A Typical Tuesday in FreiburgEuropean Union, Fall 2011

11:00 – Wake up disoriented. Right, still in Germany. Grab a yogurt for breakfast, and enjoy the fact that every dairy product in Germany has three times the fat content it would have in the States. Milk really should be more like butter.

11:30 – Make a halfhearted attempt to exercise and work off previously mentioned dairy products. Conclude that it’s “study abroad”, not “make health-conscious choices abroad”.

12:00 – possibly do a little homework, or talk to the roommates to show off all my new vocabulary. Who has two thumbs and can form barely coherent sentences? This guy.

13:00 (weird, right?) – Eat lunch and head over to the tram stop to go to the city center. Purchase awesome Arabic coffee from a kiosk and walk to the center to get educated.

13:35 – German class. This is the one part of the academics for which I have heard nothing but praise. The German teachers are engaging, and it’s hard to imagine a more practical class.

14:45 – Competition Policy, where we learn about the EU’s most successful policy field. This success might be due to the fact that in the larger cartel cases, the Commission serves as the prosecutor, jury, and judge.

16:15 – European Union Seminar. Fairly self explanatory.

18:00 – Meet with friends/roommates to cook dinner. If nothing else, I will have learned a significant number of recipes by the time this semester is over.

21:00 Head to the city center, find some establishment to meet friends and attempt to talk to Germans.

00:25 Run frantically to catch the last tram of the night back to my apartment.

1:00 Catch up on emails and homework, go to sleep and repeat.

So there you have it, more or less a normal day. It’s hard to qualify normal though – after all, I am writing this from Monaco.

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